Chapter 60
Lilias
BURN IT
Someone is talking, low and soft. I frown, trying to part the misty layers of my dreams to make out their words. Their voices are a soft, background hum, threaded with birdsong. And then someone giggles.
My eyes blink open. Sunlight traces delicate patterns across the soaring cathedral ceiling, catching on all the spiderwebs. Unusual. I frown, trying to remember why someone hasn’t cleaned those all up.
The voices start again. I turn toward them. Elrick sits in the massive hunting lodge bed, propped up on pillows, with his arm in a sling. And Anura leans over him, her face so close to his they’re almost kissing.
My cheeks burn, and I turn away. I’ve always known Anura and my brother are close, and I suspected they might have played at being lovers. But that doesn’t look like play. Not anymore.
I cough loudly, then push my blankets off and sit up.
“Finally,” my brother announces as I wipe my eyes. “See, you didn’t need to wake her up after all.”
Anura smiles at me. “Good morning,” she says. “There’s breakfast downstairs, and I have a clean dress in the—”
“Zarek,” I blurt, suddenly worried. “Where is he?”
Anura and Elrick exchange a strange look, and then she turns back to me.
“Still sleeping, I think,” she says. “I put him in a room just down the hall.”
“I want to talk to him,” Elrick adds. “To both of you, really. If you want to get him…”
His voice trails off as I come to my feet. The panicked flutter in my chest doesn’t make sense, of course Zarek is fine, but I can’t stop thinking about the look on Owain’s face when he talked about Vsenrog, and if someone discovered who Zarek really is—
Anura meets me at the door. I follow her into the hallway. In the light of day, the dust of the years this house spent empty is impossible to miss. Anura stops beside one of the servants’ rooms and nods. I push the door open with my heart in the back of my throat.
Zarek sits up in the bed, his hand dropping to his side, feeling for his absent dagger. I wonder if he always reaches for his blade when he wakes suddenly, then realize that’s a ridiculous question. Of course he does.
“Princess,” he says.
He smiles, and I forget how to speak. The soft morning light plays across his bare chest and tangles in his dark hair.
His lip is still split, but the swelling is gone, and his wicked lips are as inviting as possible.
The memory of a hundred kisses hisses through my mind like steam escaping a kettle.
And it was all a show. I turn to Anura, suddenly lost in front of the half-naked man that I married. She steps forward.
“The prince is ready to see you,” Anura tells Zarek. “Once you’re presentable.”
She glances at a chair that holds clean clothes, then at a washbasin on a table. I glance down at my own filthy dress and realize too late that I’m far from presentable myself. Zarek clears his throat, then comes to his feet and bows slightly.
“Of course,” he says. “I’ll be there shortly.”
I stare at him as Anura closes the door. He doesn’t look at me.
Anura leads me back to Elrick’s room, then into one of the bathing chambers. She ducks out, promising to return with hot water, and I press my hands to my face. My heart beats against the inside of my chest like it’s trying to escape.
Gods, after everything I’ve been through with Zarek, why did I freeze now? What in the hells is wrong with me?
Anura returns with a basin of steaming water, and I start to peel off the dress I’ve worn for days. Anura raises her eyebrow at the dark, rusty stains down the front.
“We could probably clean that,” she begins.
“No,” I snap. “Burn it.”
She frowns. I grab a towel, plunge it into the hot water, and then run it over my face, scrubbing hard, as if I can clean away everything that’s happened to me since I left the palace of Marion. Anura watches silently, handing me fresh towels, even when I begin to sob.
When I’m finally clean, dressed, and composed, I’m not at all surprised to find Zarek already standing in my brother’s chambers.
He’s wearing what looks like an old groom’s uniform, and I notice it matches the simple green dress Anura brought me.
I wonder if that was intentional, if whoever unearthed these clothes from the storage rooms meant for us to look like a matched set.
As if this was just another stop on our ridiculous Unity Tour.
I shake my head, trying to forget about the Unity Tour. It sounds like the unity between Vsenrog and Marion has been suddenly, and violently, ruptured, and I’m trying not to think about what that might mean for Zarek. Or for me.
I step forward, moving closer to my brother. Elrick smiles at me from the bed. He looks tired already, and he’s so pale it makes my chest feel tight. Last night, Elrick insisted his injuries weren’t that bad. But it’s much harder to lie like that in full daylight.
Owain told me that Elrick insisted on being the hero when the soldiers of Vsenrog attacked, that he held them off while his men fled.
Owain’s voice was gruff, but his eyes were bright in the thin moonlight as he led me back to the lodge.
He said my brother was reckless, and I’m sure he was right, but he couldn’t entirely disguise the pride in his voice.
Owain was in Elrick’s room last night when I fell asleep on one of the couches, but this morning, Gerard stands beside Elrick’s bed with one hand resting on the pommel of his sword.
I glance from Gerard to Zarek. Zarek smiles at me, a quick curl of his lips, and something inside my chest flutters.
Elrick clears his throat, then turns to Anura.
“Anura, my dear,” he says. “Would you be kind enough to close the door?”
She does, and he smiles at her in a way that strikes me as much too forward. Gods above, everyone will know how he feels about her if he’s not careful. Elrick clears his throat again, then turns to Zarek.
“Just to be clear,” Elrick says. “Everyone in this room knows who you are. You’re the snake of Vsenrog, former prince of Dungal. And you answer to King Malrik.”
Zarek doesn’t respond, but a muscle in his neck pulls tight.
“For the moment, I see no need to share that with my men,” Elrick continues. “I’m sure you had your reasons for introducing yourself as my sister’s guard and not her husband.”
Zarek bows silently, not agreeing, not disagreeing. My brother frowns, then continues.
“You’ve both heard what happened to us,” Elrick continues.
“My men and I were attacked by soldiers from Vsenrog on our way back from Ethiria. We fled here, and hells, we’re lucky to be alive.
Anura came several days later, carrying the message from Mayor Ulrich about Vsenrog troops massing south of Tanic Pass.
There’s been no declaration of war, no inciting incident, and yet, it appears that your kingdom has invaded and attacked mine. ”
Elrick’s eyes settle on Zarek’s, and in that moment, despite the bandage around his arm and the fact that he sits in a bed and not a throne, I can see the king he will become.
“Why?” Elrick asks.
The room falls silent. Somewhere outside, a bird calls through the thin mountain air. A heartbeat later, her call is answered by another, farther in the distance. Zarek bows before my brother.
“Prince Elrick of Marion,” Zarek finally says. “I have no answer for you. I thought Malrik wanted the new gold mine, the Dragon Mine, and I was—distracted by that.” That muscle tightens in his neck again. “Malrik hid his plans well. Even from me.”
Elrick snorts, then settles back on his pillows. “Tell me everything you know,” he says.
And we do. Zarek explains the Unity Tour, Prince Syvan’s soldiers, the strange camp in the mountain where he was drugged and I was abducted.
When Zarek talks about what happened inside the mine, how a strange man in white robes needed royal blood for a magical ceremony, my vision blurs with tears that I try to blink away.
Elrick frowns as Zarek describes the elf who apparently walked out of the stone wall of the mine and murdered the man in white.
“This is insane,” Gerard snorts.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Zarek replies.
Elrick presses his lips together in a thin line. “Are you suggesting,” he finally says, “that King Malrik wanted access to the Dragon Mine for some kind of magic?”
“I’m not suggesting,” Zarek says. “I was there. In fact, I’m not sure it was ever intended to be a mine at all.”
Gerard sputters. Elrick’s frown deepens.
“How much gold has it actually produced?” Zarek asks.
Gerard opens his mouth, then closes it. Elrick shakes his head.
“Still,” Gerard snaps, “you can’t honestly tell me you believe a word of this tripe.”
Elrick waves his hand. “Calm down. I’m not agreeing with anything.” He turns back to Zarek. “But why attack my men? We weren’t even close to the Vsenrog border. We had quite the diplomatic mess to clean up in Ethiria after your sudden marriage to the woman promised to Prince Laurance.”
“I assume the attack was meant to get rid of you,” Zarek replies. “With all due respect, now that I’m married to your princess, you and your father are the only things standing between Malrik taking control of the entire kingdom of Marion.”
The room falls silent again. Gerard glares at Zarek. My brother suddenly looks smaller, sitting in a massive bed with half his body wrapped in bandages. Elrick turns to Zarek again.
“But your king doesn’t need four troops of Vsenrog soldiers to get rid of me,” he says in a low voice. “Why are those troops waiting in the mountains? Why cross into Marion at all?”
I shiver, although the room is warm with sunlight.
“No,” Zarek agrees. “There’s more to this than an assassination attempt.”
“This is war,” Gerard says.
No one speaks. I turn to Anura and notice she’s wrapped her arms around her chest, and she’s holding the fabric of her sleeves tight in her fists. The bruises around Zarek’s eye make him look especially solemn as he faces my brother.
“Does your king know?” Zarek asks.
Elrick shakes his head. “I sent a messenger after the attack, but I haven’t gotten a response. I have to assume my man never reached the palace.”
Elrick turns to Anura. She looks like she’s about to faint.
“I— I will go to the palace tomorrow,” Anura begins. “To warn the king.”
“No,” I say.
Everyone in the room turns to stare at me.
“No, that’s absurd,” I continue. “Anura, you know what Father is like. Would he even believe you?”
“Well, who would he believe?” Gerard snorts.
“Me,” I answer as a sudden, cold certainty fills me. “He’ll believe me.”
There’s no other answer. My father won’t trust anyone except his own children, and Elrick is too weak to travel.
Elrick opens his mouth, but Zarek speaks first.
“I’ll travel with you,” Zarek says. “As your guard.”
Gerard spits something that sounds offensive. Zarek grins at my brother’s guard like he’s trying to win a bet.
“No one in the palace of Marion knows my face,” Zarek says. “And it would strain credulity, certainly, if the princess was traveling alone.”
“It’s not Marion I’m worried about,” Elrick mutters darkly.
“Wait,” Gerard says, narrowing his eyes at Zarek. “How did you even get out of the mine? If you were chained to some sort of magical machine, how did you escape?”
Zarek’s grin widens, and he turns to me.
“The princess rescued me,” he says, giving me a bow.
My body turns hot, then cold. I clasp my hands together to keep them from shaking as Prince Syvan’s face swells in my memory, blood pouring from his lips.
I can’t tell that story. Not here, not now. Not ever.
“They left me for dead,” Zarek continues, waving his hand at his bruised eye and broken lip. “As you can tell, they very nearly succeeded. The princess found me, unlocked me, and helped me out of the mine.”
“Why would she rescue you?” Gerard asks.
“And the white horse that followed you here?” Anura says.
“Stolen from the prince himself,” Zarek says. “Lilias is a miracle worker with horses, as I believe you all know.”
He smiles at me with his bruised and battered face, and something inside of me breaks.
I can’t drag this prince on another brutal journey.
He’s been beaten, and the gods only know what kind of injuries that magic might have created.
He needs to rest, not make a desperate trip across countryside that might well be occupied by the armies of Vsenrog.
I’ll have to talk him out of this, and soon.
Elrick turns to me with a frown. “I’ll not have you traveling alone,” my brother says. “I’ll send half a dozen men with you, and yes, Zarek too, if that’s what he wants. If you leave at first light tomorrow, you should reach Marion by evening.”
I nod, but it isn’t until I’m sitting at the table downstairs, with breakfast spread before me and steam curling above a mug of tea, that I truly accept what my brother’s words mean.
Tomorrow morning, I travel home.